Push for Che tourism follows locals' reverence

KEVIN G. HALLKnight Ridder Newspapers

Published Friday, August 20, 2004

LA HIGUERA, Bolivia -- Revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an atheist, has been reborn a saint in the desolate Bolivian village where he was captured and executed nearly 37 years ago. Like many a saint, he's also a tourist draw.

It's an odd fate for Guevara -- Fidel Castro's revolutionary sidekick in the seizure of Cuba -- who sought the violent overthrow of Latin America's political and economic structure. He was the Osama bin Laden of his day during the Cold War, Washington's archenemy.

Today his handsome mug appears on the walls of homes and in market stalls in remote La Higuera, where he died, and in Vallegrande, where he was secretly buried. In many homes, his face competes for wall space with Jesus, the Virgin Mary and a host of Roman Catholic saints.

"They say he brings miracles," said Susana Osinaga, 70, who was a young nurse on Oct. 9, 1967, when she washed the blood off Guevara's corpse in Vallegrande's small hospital. A grocery owner now, Osinaga frowns on curious tourists and journalists who seek her out. But like other locals she keeps a photo of Guevara, known throughout Latin America by his nickname, Che, on her grocery's wall.

Osinaga may soon get more unwanted visits. The international relief agency CARE is administering $300,000 in British government and private aid to promote what CARE calls Che Tourism. The project includes hostels for backpackers, road construction and infrastructure improvements to promote tourism in rural southeastern Bolivia. The hope is that Che will mean money.

"For the country, it is kind of a product, or a comparative advantage for them to use and improve their own livelihoods," Marwa El-Ansary, CARE's project director, said in an interview in Vallegrande.

There isn't much progress evident in La Higuera. Its population -- 100 families when Guevara was summarily executed 11 months after arriving in Bolivia -- has dwindled to about 40 families. There still is no electricity. What power there is, is, well, Che.

"It's like he is alive and with us, like a friend. He is kind of like a Virgin (Mary) for us. We say, 'Che, help us with our work or with this planting,' and it always goes well," explained Manuel Cortez, a poor La Higuera farmer who lived next door to the schoolhouse where Guevara was executed. "He suffered almost like Our Father, in flesh and bone."